


I can feel you breathing under my skin

by Ramenlover



Category: Cyberpunk 2077 (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, F/F, How does that gigantic bucket of guilt taste Johnny?, I am not immune to angsty song lyrics as titles, I swear this started as a fluff piece, I would apologise butttt, Judy is a supportive girlfriend, Judy is the best girlfriend, V is sleep deprived, i wrote this with never fade away on repeat for like an hour, set late-game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:48:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28257174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ramenlover/pseuds/Ramenlover
Summary: As V's time runs out she begins to feel the borders between herself and Johnny slipping.
Relationships: Johnny Silverhand & Female V, Judy Alvarez/Female V
Comments: 9
Kudos: 332





	I can feel you breathing under my skin

**Author's Note:**

> Important note: this is heavily influenced by my personal playthrough of V where she was incredibly stealthy and used non-lethal methods as much as possible until the end game where I began to use more violent methods to rp Johnny's effect on her
> 
> Title from 'Under My Skin' by Jukebox ghost

Sleep was getting harder and harder to come by. V didn’t know if it was the stress, injuries, her body dying around her or some mixture of it all. How could a body sleep while it was at war with itself? Any gained at all certainly wasn’t restful. Judy had helped mitigate things somewhat. Something in her presence, her care, it helped. Sleep felt softer, kinder. Like a gentle embrace instead of hurtling into a dark abyss (one she might not wake up from).

It was not enough.

Nothing could be enough.

V woke blearily. The clock on the wall of Judy’s bedroom announced that she’d only managed to get forty-five minutes of rest. Sighing, she slumped her head back onto the pillow, feeling Judy mumble something and tighten the arms around her waist. A small smile touched the corners of V’s mouth. She carefully took one of Judy’s hands and brought it up to her lips.

Then she froze.

The arm that should have been hers was wrong somehow. She couldn’t quite put her finger on why though. Frowning, she brought it closer, squinting at the wrists. Right her monowire implants were missing.

How could they…?

The wrongness hit her all at once. That wasn’t her skin colour, those weren’t her tattoos, those weren’t her hands, her fingers, her nails. She sat bolt upright in bed, stretching both shaking arms out in front of her. God, the other arm was worse. No flesh, just silver metal, complex but simple in its design. Not hers. Not hers. Not hers.

But still familiar.

“V?”

She looked straight ahead into the darkness. Her own face looked back at her.

She screamed. The voice that came out wasn’t hers.

Somewhere a light flickered on and the face vanished. Her arms were her own, the scream still coming from her was a familiar one.

“V!” Judy grabbed her shoulders, putting herself directly into V’s line of sight. “Hey, hey, hey! V! Look at me!” She took V’s face in her hands, ignoring the tears that slid down them. “V, you’re okay.”

Closing her eyes, V felt herself shaking, felt her voice cracking as she said, “I was- I was him, Jude. I couldn’t- I didn’t- I didn’t realise. It took me so long to but I was him and he- He was- Oh fuck oh-” She felt herself fall forward, Judy catching her, cradling her.

“It’s okay,” Judy murmured as V sobbed quietly against her. “You’re okay.” She began humming, the same song she’d sang that day beneath the water. It became the only sound inside V’s head, drowning out the noise of her own tears, of her own heart hammering inside her chest. “You’re V,” she said when V’s shaking had stopped. “You always have been always will be. That Silverhand fucker, ain’t taking you away. You hear me?”

V nodded, trusting herself to sit up. She sniffed. “I probably look like shit,” she said and Judy laughed. There were tears in both their eyes as they managed to smile at each other. “I dunno if I can go back to sleep.”

“That’s okay,” Judy said. She ran her fingers through V’s hair. “You want pizza?”

In Night City, there was never an hour too late to find  _ something _ open and willing to deliver. They left the bedroom and whacked the tv onto some late night reality show. Something with lots of dramatic camera angles and close ups on poorly feigned surprise. It was nice to know sometimes that for some this was the height of tension in their lives. No life or death, no races against a time, no ghosts in people’s heads. Just light meaningless fluff.

As the hours began to encroach onto dawn, V lay with her head in Judy’s lap beginning to feel somewhat herself again. Judy was explaining in detail about her current process with the double BD she had rolled with V underwater. Even for V, who’d done her fair share of techie work, it was just a lot of syllables rolled into nonsensical words. Didn’t matter. It was Judy’s voice, Judy’s voice while she was  _ happy _ and that was the most gorgeous thing in the entire world.

It helped drown out what she’d seen. It helped soothe her fear and Johnny’s guilt that she could feel roiling inside her. Regardless of what she’d seen, it  _ had _ been him before. Sensing her sudden panic, trying to understand what was wrong. As if he didn’t already know. He had to know. If he didn’t know, didn’t understand, then who the fuck else was ever supposed to be able to? Fuck!

No. She tightened her fists. No. No, that anger wasn’t her. It wasn’t her. It had never been her. The guilt increased and she curled up, bringing her knees up against her chest.

There was a silence where there hadn’t been before.

“He’s changing me, Jude,” she whispered. “I’m doing things I’d never even think of before.” She’d already told Judy about the warehouse of Scavs. It hadn’t even been a few nights ago but it felt so long… The night that she’d broken in to steal footage.

It’d been like any other mission of hers at first, sneak in, sneak out, no one any the wiser that she’d ever been there. Wakako had praised her for being like a phantom before and it was something that she’d prided herself on. That and her restraint. For all the horrors there were in this city, all the horrors she’d become entangled in, the one thing she’d sworn to herself was that she had to be different. She couldn’t let herself become a violent, coldblooded killer.

Then she’d snuck up on that unsuspecting Scav and snapped his neck without a second thought. It had been enough to send her into a frozen shock. Just staring at the dead man on the ground. Johnny had been yelling at her to move but before she’d recovered, the other Scavs were on her. She’d stumbled home covered in blood and delirious. It’d taken her over a day to even drop the footage off.

“It’s not you,” Judy said.

“What if it is?” V whispered. “Or what if- What if it’s better? I dunno if I’d have been able to- Woodhouse and the Tyger bosses. Before Johnny I dunno if I’d have been able to just kill them like that.”

Judy’s hand froze where it had been stroking V’s hair. “You know what I like most about you, V?”

V shook her head, mumbling, “No idea.”

“You care,” Judy said. “You care so much about everything and everyone. If someone needs help you help them. That ain’t ever goin’ away. I know it. I do.”

In the quiet of V’s silent thanks, Johnny reappeared. The usual vest was gone, his eyes missing their signature shades. This was the real Johnny, the one that had saved her, the one that had given her the dogtags that still hung around her neck.

“She’s right, V,” he said and his voice was so soft. Almost gentle. “You’re making me care more than I ever did about anything. Whatever happens, I’ll still have that- that part of you.” Sighing, he ducked his head down. “I’m only saying this cos you’re upset but… you make me better, V, and I’m so fucking sorry that I’m making you worse.”

“You’re not,” she whispered out loud. He shook his head, like he thought she was lying.

“Not what?” Judy asked.

“No… He’s here,” V murmured. “Well, he’s always here but…” She trailed off, watching the way the lights through the window played off Johnny’s face.

“He telling you to tough it out?” Judy asked. “I’ll fight him, where is he?”

“Nah,” V laughed. “Wouldn’t be a fair fight. You’d beat him easy.” Even Johnny snorted at that and the heaviness of the air abated somewhat. V stretched out again, rolling onto her back so she could look up at Judy’s face. Still lovely even when pretty clearly tired. Judy smiled back, then her eyes passed down to the dogtags reflecting the streetlights.

“These ain’t yours,” she said, picking one up and holding it a little higher into the light.

“Johnny’s,” V said. “Stashed em in a shitty motel room before he died. Gave em to me after the whole shitshow with Hanako and Takemura.” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Johnny lift his head slightly. “Part of his promise, you know?”

Judy let the dogtag drop with a clink of metal. “Guess he ain’t the shithead he seems, huh?”

“Oh no, he is,” V said and Judy laughed. “He’s just more than that.” She sighed and Judy began stroking her hair again.

“What’s it like?” Judy asked. “If you wanna tell me.”

Now there was a question. How to describe it all? How to put it all succinctly into words?

“It’s like if a dream started living under your skin,” she said and saw, felt, Johnny frown. “I can feel him. Always. He’s right there, just out of reach sometimes but always there. Sometimes there’s shit I just know but I shouldn’t and if I try and figure out how I know it then my head just hurts. Sometimes it’s like a nightmare, breaking at me, tearing me out but…” She turned her head, looking him full in the face. “Most of the time, it’s just nice not being alone. You know?”

“I do,” both he and Judy said at once. Johnny blinked in surprise then pulled his shades from somewhere. His first defence against the outside world as per usual.

Leaning up on elbows, V kissed Judy then grinned. “He won’t admit it,” she said, “but I think he likes you.”


End file.
